Wikipedia, the very free encyclopedia
Categories: Entertainment, Information Technology, Internet, TechnologyFor those of you who don’t understand the problem with Wikipedia as a serious source I submit only that it currently (after being suggested in humor on 30 Rock) reports that Janis Joplin “speed walked everywhere and was afraid of toilets.”
While it appears the article has been locked before someone could update it to include that she also ate cats I think this is a good example of how the wisdom of the mob is not always correct.
2 Responses to “Wikipedia, the very free encyclopedia”
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al Says:
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:01 pmOk, that may be true … but you gotta admit that’s damn funny.
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Bob Watkins Says:
February 16th, 2009 at 4:11 pmOkay, I’ll admit that it probably said that about Janis.
But I’ll bet it didn’t say that for long.
Wikipedia includes checks and balances in its “anybody can edit” model. Such as the recent posts list, which many volunteers scan to spot vandalism; automated processes called “bots” which auto-reverse the more obvious cases of vandalism, such as blanked pages; and the page history, that anyone reading a Wikipedia article can use to see what changes have been made over time.
No one doing serious academic research would rely on Wikipedia as their only source, but then, no one doing serious research sould rely on any one source.
Studies have been done comparing Wikipedia’s accuracy against other encyclopedias, including Britannica, and it compares favorably.
